Awards & Accolades - July 2017

Summer brings an impressive list of faculty, staff, and student accomplishments. Congratulations to all of our members being recognized this month.

2017 ASTech Awards

Four 2017 ASTech Award finalists were announced from the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. Award winners will be announced at the 28th Annual ASTech Awards and Next Gen Innovators Showcase, November 3, 2017 at TELUS Spark in Calgary. Good luck to our finalists!

Jessica Luc - Medical student whose many contributions to Alberta's science and technology community include internationally recognized research, medical education initiatives, humanism in medicine endeavours and space technology development.

Amit Persad- Medical student expanding exploratory neuroscience with his project on the role of protein in brain tumours and the central nervous system. Amit also developed LiveBook, a software program inspired by an existing medical education tool.

Lori J. West - Researcher and transplant cardiologist. She has made critical discoveries that increase the number of organs available for patients to address the global shortage of suitable donor organs.

Metabolomic Technologies Inc.(MTI) - Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry spin-off company that improves cancer detection and prevention with the commercialization of their metabolomic urine test for colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancerous death in Canada, and its precursor polyps. MTI is led by Dean Richard Fedorak.

Department of Pediatrics

Congratulations to the following 2017 Department of Pediatrics Faculty Awards recipients:

• Best Teacher Award in Community Pediatrics: Indra Dhunnoo

• Excellence in Community Pediatrics: Heather Leonard & Waldemar Szymanski

• Best Teaching Division: Gastroenterology and Nutrition

• Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching: Cardiology

• Pediatric Grand Rounds Award: Carol Hodgson

• Cooperation, Collaboration and Teamwork Recognition Award: Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Multidisciplinary Team

• Innovation Award: Mandi Newton Research Paper Awards: Piush Mandhane & Rhonda Rosychuk

• Annual Teaching Award by Subspecialty Residents: Carina Majaesic

• Top Ten Teachers:

  • Samina Ali

  • Mouhammad Ansarian

  • Karen Forbes

  • Jessica Foulds

  • Bonnie Islam

  • Mia Lang

  • Diana Murray

  • Hasu Rajani

  • William Sevcik

  • Jason Silverman

Samina Ali was awarded a 2017 Health Quality Council of Alberta Patient Experience Award, for being a part of Commitment to Comfort: Improving the pain experience of children in Alberta's emergency departments.

Specialty Awards

Congratulations to Xing-Fang Li, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, on the CIC Environment Division Research and Development Dima Award.

Elaine Leslie, Department of Physiology, achieved the 2017 American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) Division for Toxicology - Junior Investigator Award.

Meena Kalluri and Janice Richman-Eisenstat's Multidisciplinary ILD Collaborative program was recognized by the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement as an emerging innovation in palliative care.

Peter Ao, General Internal Medicine, was awarded the TD Insurance Meloche Monnex/Alberta Medical Association Scholarship for his point-of-care ultrasound training.

Connie Lebrun, Department of Family Medicine and Glen Sather Clinic, has been inducted to the Volleyball Manitoba Hall of Fame.

Teresa (Terry) De Freitas, Department of Family Medicine and Glen Sather Clinic, has been named the Chief Medical Advisor for Taekwondo Canada. Congrats!

The Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta (PARA)

The following FoMD members have been honoured by The Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta (PARA):

• Karen King, Oncology, has been awarded the 2016-2017 PARA Clinical Teaching Award

• Ryan McColl, General Surgery, Red Deer Regional Hospital, has been awarded the 2016-2017 PARA Clinical Teaching Award

• Melanie Marsh, Psychiatry, has been awarded the 2016-2017 PARA Well-Being Award

• Paula Burke, Family Medicine, has been awarded the 2016-2017 PARA Well-Being Award

Honourable mention for clinical teaching:

• Brock Debenham, Program Director, Radiation Oncology

• Alexander Doroshenko, Assistant Professor, Division of Preventive Medicine

• Chris Keeling, Dermatologist

• Sudha Koppula, Faculty Advisor, Associate Professor

Department of Surgery

Top 10 Teacher Awards:

General Surgery:

• Ghassan Alhassani

• Dave Callaghan

• Mike Chatenay

• Curtis Ciona

• Walter Yakimets

• Ron Brisebois

• Erica Haase

• Cliff Sample

• Mary Stephens

• Ramesh Juta

Specialty Surgery:

• Allan Ho

• Dan O'Connell

• Niels Jacobsen

• Howard Evans

• Steven Meyer

• Keith Rourke

• Blair St. Martin

• Dan Cote

• Gary Gray

• Ken Stewart

Annual Surgical Resident Awards:

• The George R. Graham Postgraduate Memorial Bursary - Christopher W. White

• The Marshall C. Hunting Award in Vascular Surgery - Andrew Rasmussen

• The Cooper Johnston Memorial Scholarship - Tom Goodine

• The Frank Squire Scholarship in Urology - Adam Kinnaird& Max Levine

• R. E. Fraser Award for Excellence in Teaching - Noah Switzer& Christopher White

• The Hastings Mewburn Postgraduate Scholarship in Orthopedic Medicine - Armin Badre

Divisional Research Day Awards:

General Surgery, Clinical Science

• First Place: Courtney Fulton, preceptors: J. Damian Paton-Gayand Sandy Widder

• Second Place: Gil Eamer, preceptors: Rachel Khadaroo and Ronald Brisebois

• Third Place: Blaire Anderson, preceptor: David Bigam

• Fourth Place: Erica Lester, preceptor: Scott Klarenbach

Basic Science:

• First Place: Michael Laffin, preceptors: Bryan Dicken and Karen Madsen

Urology, Resident Research Paper

• First Place: Adam Kinnaird

• Second Place: Max A. Levine

• Third Place: Jan K. Rudzinski

Student Research Paper

• First Place: David Chapman

• Second Place: Zhihao (James) Xu

Orthopedic Surgery

• Clinical Science, First Place: Chris DeSutter

• Clinical Science, Second Place: Thomas Goodine

• Best Literature Review: Tyson Boettcher

• Outstanding Resident Teaching Award: Babak Sharifi

Plastic Surgery

• Best Clinical Paper: Matthew Curran

• Best Basic Science Paper: Jenna-Lynn Senger

• Best Education Paper: Emilie Robertson

Cardiac Surgery

• Audrey Greenough-Norm Davies Award for Best Clinical Science: Sabin Bozso

Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery

• First Place: Adrian Mendez

• Second Place: Scott Murray

• Academic Excellence Award: Andre Isaac

• Clinical Services Junior Award: Dustin Conrad

• Clinical Services Senior Award: Tim Cooper

• Student Award Research Day: Amr Hamour

• Resident Teaching Award: Adrian Mendez

• Resident Well-being Award: Jessica Clark

Faculty Teaching Awards

• Golden Apple Award: Rob Seemann

• Golden Scalpel Award: Hadi Seikaly

2017 Graduate Student Research Day

• First Place Oral Presentation: Antonio Bruni

• Second Place Oral Presentation: Kimberly Macala

• Third Place Oral Presentation: Cameron Elliott

• First Place Poster Presentation: Jenna-Lynn Senger

• Second Place Poster Presentation: Jonathan Mora

• Third Place Poster Presentation: Jennifer Gyoba

• Public Opinion Vote: Kimberly Macala

Canadian Society of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery - Annual Meeting 2017

• Second place, CSOHNS 2017 Poliquin Poster Competition: Amr Hamour

• CSOHNS first place non-clinical Poliquin Competition: Adrian Mendez

• CSOHNS first place clinical research award, Poliquin Competition: Scott Murray

Students, Residents & Associates

The Women and Children's Health Research Institute announced the names of the students who were successful in their recent Graduate Studentship competition. The award is valued at up to $18,000 per year and may be held for up to two years. A total of 63 applications were reviewed and 20 funded. The following are recipients from the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry:

• Istahil Abdullahi, Pediatrics (supervisor: Lesley Mitchell): "Pediatric cancer cells produce genes that could help the cancer spread throughout the body: investigating new ways that we can try to stop the cancer from spreading."

• Mahsa Alaee,Oncology (supervisor: Manijeh Pasdar): "In search of therapeutics for the metastatic ovarian cancer."

• Nadia Browne, Pediatrics (supervisor: Geoff Ball): "Motivation to change lifestyle habits in adolescents with obesity."

• Eliza Li, Pediatrics (supervisors: Carmen Rasmussen and Jacqueline Pei): "Executive functioning and functional outcomes of children with perinatal stroke."

• Esha Ganguly, Obstetrics & Gynecology (supervisor: Sandra Davidge): "Treating the placenta with antioxidant can improve pregnancy outcomes."

• Mahdieh Khodaei Jalalabadi, Radiology & Diagnostic Imaging (supervisors: Lawrence Le and Edmond HM Lou): "Spinal flexibility measurements on ultrasound images."

• Kenji Rowel Kim, Medical Genetics (supervisors: Daniel Grafand Toshifumi Yokota): "Using small DNA-like molecules to develop a treatment for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy."

• Colin Lloyd, Laboratory Medicine & Pathology (supervisor: Linda Chiu): "Community pediatric Clostridium difficile colonization in Alberta."

• Mohamed Salla (supervisor: Shairaz Baksh): "Exploring therapeutics for targeting the inflammatory component of Hodgkin's Lymphoma."

• Bridget Wiafe, Surgery (supervisors Peter Metcalfe and Adesida Adetola): "Cell therapy for overactive bladders."

The Summit for Cancer Immunotherapy took place in Gatineau, Québec June 25-28, 2017. Best poster presentation awards went to research associate Ryan Noyce (David Evans' lab, MMI) and MSc candidate Allison McNamara (Kris Baker's lab, Oncology).

Alberta Jenkinson & Stephen Buhl Award

• Curtis Budden, Plastic Surgery

• Grayson Beecher, Neurology

• Blaire Anderson, General Surgery

• Mariam Abbas, Dermatology

• Erin Boschee, Pediatrics

• Jeffrey Tompkins, Anatomical Pathology

Gordon Denchfield Thompson Scholarship

• Sahil Gupta, Emergency Medicine

• Rejish Thomas, Psychiatry

Congratulations to the award winners at the Gastroenterology Resident/Fellow Appreciation Dinner:

GI Resident Awards:

• Victor Dong - Resident Teacher Award

• Shawn Wasilenko - Ahmed Mohamed Memorial Award

Faculty Teaching Awards:

• Robert Bailey - Teacher of the Year Award

• Clarence Wong- Endoscopy Teacher of the Year Award

The E. N. Skakun Award for Service to Education recognizes major and long-term contribution to the educational leadership and scholarship in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

The David Cook Award is presented to a faculty member (or a group of members) of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry who has successfully planned and implemented a significant curricular innovation.

Nomination Deadline: July 31, 2017

Contact: kbauer@ualberta.ca